International Connections Fund Past Grants

Published November 2012

ShareThis

November 2012

Chicago a cappella – $18,500 in support of a musical and cultural exchange between artistic director Jonathan Miller and composer, choral director, and conductor Jorge Cordoba Valencia, a premier choral composer and director in Mexico.

Chicago Cultural Alliance – $40,000 for the cultural exchange of representatives of the Alliance’s Swedish American Museum, Chinese-American Museum, and Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art with ethnic museums in their home countries.

Contratiempo – $20,000 to collaborate with the bilingual alternative culture magazine Humanize, based in Madrid, Spain. Each will contribute to the other’s publication.

Every House Has a Door – $32,500 to expand a Bristol, UK performance piece to include material developed from the Randolph Street Gallery Archive, held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, through artist and performer residencies.

Fulcrum Point New Music Project – $50,000 to support the collaborative creation of a new work fusing western classical and Indian classical music by Fulcrum Point, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, composer Param Vir, Fulcrum Point Artistic Director Stephen Burns, and sarod virtuoso, Soumik Datta.

Global Girls – $45,000 in support of a cross-cultural residency. Girls from the South Side will share their techniques in using the performing arts to help learn new skills with students of Kattaikkutte Sangam, a residential performing arts school outside of Chennai, India.

Hedwig Dances – $50,000 for a collaborative exchange with DanzAbierta dance company of Havana, Cuba to jointly choreograph two dances that will be performed in both countries.

Latinos Progresando – $40,000 to establish an ongoing cross-cultural exchange between Chicago’s Little Village and Centro Cultural Bacaanda arts organization in Oaxaca, Mexico. The experience will be developed into a theater piece.

Live the Spirit Residency – $45,000 to support a jazz education and composition exchange with London-based artist education and development group Tomorrow’s Warriors who will perform two specially commissioned original works at the Englewood Jazz Festival in Chicago and the Lively Up Festival in London.

portoluz– $50,000 in support of an exchange and performances of son jarocho music in Chicago, Berwyn, and Cicero between musicians from Chicago and Veracruz, Mexico.

Puerto Rican Arts Alliance – $40,000 to support an ongoing international collaboration with the Puerto Rican Philharmonic Orchestra and Quique Domenech, a master musician and teacher of the cuatro, a traditional instrument of Puerto Rico.

Silk Road Rising – $50,000 for collaboration with the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University in Beirut to translate, adapt, and present a staged reading by Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannus.

threewalls – $22,000 to jointly curate a series of exhibitions with Or Gallery Vancouver and Or Gallery Berlin highlighting visual artists and work from the three cities.

December 2011

Aguijon Theater Company – A grant of $24,000 to develop a show in Cartagena, Colombia, and to showcase the work of three Spanish-language, Caribbean playwrights in Chicago

Chicago Humanities Festival – A $45,000 grant to collaborate with the Edinburgh-based Imaginate Festival to share programming and marketing approaches and exchange original theatrical productions that will be presented at the 2013 festivals in Chicago and Edinburgh

Chicago Jazz Philharmonic – A $30,000 grant in support of a multi-year conductor and composer residency and exchange with Metropol Orkest in the Netherlands

Chicago Shakespeare Theater – A grant of $50,000 to participate in the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad with an original, hip hop interpretation of Othello that will be featured at the Globe Theatre’s Globe to Globe Festival

DanceWorks Chicago – A grant of $50,000 to adapt a DanceWorks production for a Mexico audience in collaboration with a dance group and a youth orchestra from Mexico City

Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance – A $50,000 grant to bring together artists and youth from the Alliance, Chicago West Community Music Center, and two community-based organizations in Brazil to collaborate on a series of art projects and performances by and for residents of low-income housing complexes in the Sao Paolo region of Brazil

International Contemporary Ensemble Foundation, Inc. – A grant of $50,000 in support of a collaboration between its musicians, Chicago-based composer Marcos Balter, and four emerging Brazilian composers to create and present four new contemporary music compositions in Chicago and cities in Brazil

Links Hall – A $20,000 grant for a performance series that will present original multi-disciplinary art work from emerging visual and performance artists from Chicago and Havana, Cuba

Lucky Plush – A $45,000 grant in support of contemporary dance and movement performances and workshops carried out in collaboration with three dance organizations in New Zealand

Museum of Contemporary Art – A grant of $50,000 for the theatrical adaptation of a short story by Mexican writer Juan Rolfo in collaboration with Cuban theater company Teatro Buendia, the Goodman Theatre, and Northwestern University’s Theatre and Interpretation Center

The Seldoms – A $40,000 grant for a dance exchange with WCdance company in Taiwan

October 2009

These grants, totaling $280,000, are the sixth and final set of awards from the MacArthur Foundation's Chicago International Connections Fund.

Chicago Moving Company: A grant of $15,000 will support a month-long residency for company members at the University of Culture in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia, where they will perform and teach modern dance.

House Development Corporation (Firehouse Community Arts Center): A grant of $50,000 to improve race relations and cross-cultural understanding in Chicago's Lawndale neighborhood by sending African-American and Latino youth to the University of Veracruz in Mexico to learn about the connections between African and Mexican cultures.

Korean American Resource and Cultural Center: A grant of $40,000 will support an exchange between members of Il Kwa Nori, a musical troupe that performs traditional Korean folk percussion, and master artists in South Korea to teach, improve musical and performance skills, and learn how to use this art form for community outreach and education.

Local Initiatives Support Corporation: A grant of $50,000 will support an exchange between community development leaders from Chicago and Russia to share expertise about public/private partnerships for community and economic development.

Options for Youth: A $50,000 grant will support an exchange program between members of Options for Youth and social service organizations in Guanajuato, Mexico, to share expertise and best practices in delaying second pregnancies among adolescent mothers.

Quad Communities Development Corporation: A grant of $50,000 will support a week-long study tour of London's Brixton neighborhood by a Quad Communities delegation to learn practices that have transformed Brixton into a vibrant mixed income and multi-racial community.

The Seldoms: A grant of $25,000 will support an exchange program between members of the Chicago contemporary dance company and the Isadora International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, to teach classes and choreograph a dance work.

July 2009

These grants, totaling $206,000, are the fifth set of awards from the MacArthur Foundation's International Connections Fund.

Chicago Human Rhythm Project: A grant of $40,000 will support a five-week tour to China, where the Project will present 216 master classes and perform 20 concerts in nine cities.

Free Street Theater: A grant of $25,000 will support an exchange program with Makhampon Theatre Company in Chiang Dao, Thailand, to share experiences in using performance art to mediate conflicts and improve relationships among different communities.

Facets Multimedia: A grant of $36,000 to enable international dialog between 20 high school age filmmakers and film critics from Illinois and 20 youth producers of media from India, Italy, Korea, and French-speaking Canada.

National Museum of Mexican Art: A grant of $40,000 will allow the Museum to bring speakers from Mexico to Chicago to participate in five roundtables in partnership with local universities as part of the Year of Mexico in Chicago, a city initiative to advance residents' understanding of Mexico.

TUTA Theatre Company: A grant of $25,000 will support collaboration between TUTA and the National Theatre in Belgrade, Serbia, to stage the Balkan premiere of Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul.

While the 2011 Fund is solely focused on exchanges and collaborations betweenChicago arts and culture organizations and their counterparts abroad, the 2008-2010 Fund included all Chicago-based grantees of the MacArthur Foundation. View grantees under the former Fund.

April 2009

These grants, totaling $200,000, are the fourth set of awards from the MacArthur Foundation's International Connections Fund:

Urban Gateways: A grant of $50,000 will support an exchange between arts educators in Chicago and Tanzania to promote literacy, creative self-expression, and critical thinking among youth.

Chicago Chamber Musicians: A grant of $10,000 will help support a special performance of Strange News, a multimedia musical production by a Norwegian composer about child soldiers in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Redmoon Theater: A grant of $45,000 will help support Firehouse, a community arts project and performance about fire stations in County Donegal, Ireland. The three-year effort will involve travel between Chicago and Ireland for research; the work will be performed in Ireland and in Chicago.

Erie Neighborhood House: A grant of $45,000 will enable board members, lead staff, and key community partners to take part in a study tour of Guanajuato, Mexico, the region of origin of many of Chicago's Mexican immigrants, to better understand the needs of the organization's local clients.

January 2009

Community Justice for Youth Institute: A grant of $50,000 will help support an exchange between juvenile justice advocates in Chicago and South Africa so they can learn from each other's strategies to rehabilitate youth offenders.

Concert Dance, Inc.: A grant of $50,000 will help support an exchange program between the contemporary dance company and the Department of Music and Dance of Nanjing Normal University in China for performances, lectures, and classes.

Latinos Progresando in partnership with Chicago Youth Boxing Club: A grant of $45,000 will enable youth and staff to visit a rural community in the central state of Guanajuato, Mexico that has been experiencing high levels of emigration. Chicago-area youth will engage members of a youth group in Guanajuato in a theatric exploration of immigration issues through Latinos Progresando's Teatro Americano theatre group. Youth from Chicago Youth Boxing Club will conduct workshops in boxing, health and fitness, and leadership development, as well as equip a new fitness facility in partnership with the local community.

Logan Square Neighborhood Association: A grant of $45,000 will support an exchange between parents, artists, and educators in Chicago and in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Mexico, Hidalgo, and Puebla.

ShawChicago Theatre Company: A grant of $50,000 will support the organization's participation in the Annual Selcuk University International Theater Festival in Konya, Turkey in March.

October 2008

Chicago Zoological Society: A $50,000 grant will help the Brookfield Zoo launch a conservation leadership development program between teenagers in Chicago and the South American nation of Guyana.

The Goodman Theatre: A $30,000 grant will support the newly established Eugene O'Neill festival featuring international productions of his work from Holland and Brazil.

Hooked on Drums: A $15,000 grant will support workshops for 40 Chicago youth with master drummer Billy Nankouma Konate of Guinea.

Kalapriya Foundation: A $25,000 grant will help Kalapriya support the Chicago-area and Illinois portion of a national tour of Rupayan, a world-renowned musical ensemble from Rajasthan in northern India.

National Museum of Mexican Art: A $50,000 grant will support artist exchanges between Chicago-area artists and artisans and those from the Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca resulting in traveling exhibits, public discussions, and educational programs that will be held at the Museum and in institutions in Mexico.

Old Town School of Folk Music: A $50,000 grant will help establish the Folk Arts Exchange Program. Teaching artists from Mexico, Russia, and India will teach and perform at the School, while Chicago faculty will travel to do the same at institutions in each of those countries.

Puerto Rican Arts Alliance: A $25,000 grant will help expand the Taino Project, which teaches Chicago Public Schools students about the culture and history of indigenous people of the Caribbean by allowing Kelvyn Park High School students to travel to Puerto Rico to learn from anthropologists and archaeologists about historical and culture sites on the island.

July 2008

Art Institute of Chicago: A grant of $40,000 will support a cultural exchange with Nigerian scholars and dignitaries for the Institute's exhibition, Benin-Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria. Scholars will participate in lectures and performances at the exhibition's only North American venue.

Chicago Children's Choir: A grant of $40,000 will support the Choir's 55 singers and nine staff members as they represent Chicago on a summer tour of the Republic of Korea.

Chicago Human Rhythm Project: A grant of $50,000 will support an exchange with the Beijing Contemporary Music Institute's dance ensemble and the China Performing Arts Agency to allow 14 dancers to attend CHRP's Chicago summer festival of tap, Rhythm World.

Facets Multimedia: A grant of $50,000 will support Media Bridge: Global Exchanges in Youth Filmmaking, a curating and screenwriting initiative for 13 youth ages 15 to 19 from Chicago and 13 youth from India, Mexico, Russia, Sri Lanka, Ghana, and Portugal.

Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights: A grant of $45,000 will support leaders from five lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organizations operating in global areas of conflict and oppression — Guatemala, Nigeria, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Iraq — to participate in a Human Rights and Organizational Leadership Development Fellowship in Chicago.

Local Initiatives Support Corporations: A grant of $42,500 will help the Chicago Sunday Parkways Stakeholders Committee, which includes representatives of five New Communities Program neighborhoods, connect with civic leaders in Ecuador to learn about efforts to better use public space to promote health, civic engagement, and economic development.

Next Theatre Company: A grant of $7,500 will allow collaboration with theater colleagues in the Czech Republic to develop a world-premiere adaptation of War with the Newts based on Karel Capek's 1936 novel. The play will premiere in Chicago during the winter of 2009.

Pegasus Players: A grant of $50,000 will support the expansion of the Global Voices program, which uses theater arts and language to increase cross-cultural understanding among Chicago high-school students and their peers around the world.

Related Content

Members of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic were in Havana, Cuba last week on a MacArthur-supported cultural exchange, when the announcement of renewed diplomatic relations with the United States occurred. Read More

“Cross-cultural learning and sharing of artistic experiences can bring fresh perspectives to the creative organizations involved, and help inform, engage, and entertain diverse audiences in Chicago and around the world,” said MacArthur President Robert Gallucci. Read More

The grants are provided through MacArthur’s International Connections Fund, which aims to help Chicago nonprofit arts and culture organizations advance their work by collaborating with peer organizations abroad. Read More